1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a spool for use in a fishing reel and, in particular, to such spool the surface of which is treated in such a manner that not only the weight of the spool can be reduced but also the gloss of the outside of the spool and the durability thereof can be enhanced.
2. Description of the Related Prior Art
In a fishing reel, so as to enhance its operation efficiency, portability, and the like, conventionally, reduction of the weight has been proceeded. For this purpose, in such fishing reel, in most cases, there is used a spool in which, for example, instead of metal material such as aluminum or the like, resin material is used as the base material of the spool.
Especially, in a spool which is composed of a fishing line winding barrel portion and front and rear flange portions, in an actual fishing operation, when a fishing line with a load applied thereto is uniformly wound around the fishing line winding barrel portion of the spool, not only an excessive pressure is applied to the fishing line barrel portion due to the tightening force of the fishing line, but also, for example, when releasing the fishing line (playing out the fishing line), a friction force is applied to the spool because the fishing line released (played out) is frictionally contacted with the front flange portion of the spool.
In such cases, the surface of the spool can be damaged, or, large resistance can be applied to the fishing line when it is released (played out), thereby lowering the carrying distance of the fishing line or damaging and cutting the fishing line.
In order to solve the above problems, for example, in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 63-42070 of Showa, there is proposed a spool in which ceramics is thermally sprayed and formed on the outer-most layer thereof.
In particular, to produce the spool, at first, an alloy having a low melting point is thermally sprayed onto the surface of the spool base material formed of synthetic resin, next, ceramics is thermally sprayed on the thus alloy thermally sprayed surface, and, finally, the thus alloy-and-ceramics thermally sprayed surface is abraded or polished into a smooth surface.
However, in the conventional spool, since the metal film layer or ceramics film layer are thermally sprayed and formed on the surface of the spool base material formed of synthetic resin, the degree of smoothness of the film layer surface is lowered and the thickness of the film layer is increased. Also, because the surface treatment temperature is high, the heat radiation of the spool surface is not good, which in turn has ill influences on the quality of the synthetic resin spool base material (in particular, the spool base material can be deformed, the quality thereof is degraded, the strength thereof is lowered, the dimensions thereof can be varied, the weight thereof is increased due to the large film thickness, and so on).
Also, in the conventional spool, in order to obtain the smoothness and gloss of the spool surface, as a finishing step, it is necessary to execute an abrading or polishing treatment on the spool surface to thereby obtain a desired smooth spool surface. Due to this, the base metal layer (that is, the metal layer formed of low-melting-point alloy) of the spool surface can be easily exposed, which in turn causes the spool surface to be corroded or damaged. And, when the fishing line is frictionally contacted with the exposed base metal layer, for example, in the fishing line releasing operation (that is, in the fishing line play-out operation), large resistance is applied to the fishing line, which lowers the carrying distance of the fishing line, or damages the fishing line to thereby cut the same.
Further, since the conventional spool surface treatment requires a large number of surface treatment processes, it takes long time to carry out the large number of surface treatment processes and also the costs necessary for such surface treatment processes are expensive.
Also, when ceramics is used in the outer-most layer of the spool, there cannot be obtained a metal appearance having a high-quality impression nor a handy-to-use impression. Therefore, such use of ceramics is not desirable from the viewpoint of the appearance of the spool.